This set is a recording of Scandinavian music for chamber choir, all dealing
with children (“Kind” means “child” in Norwegian).
One track, The Stolen Child, is for chamber choir and string quartet.
The recording intersperses traditional folk-songs from Norway with more-or-less
contemporary compositions by three Nordic composers.

But first, an overview of what the set contains. There are two discs: the
first a CD, which is a hybrid SACD. The second is much more complex. It is
a Blu-Ray audio disc, which features pretty much every format you’d
ever want to listen to. Standard playback offers 5.0 and stereo in 24-bit,
192 kHz format. But if your Blu-Ray player is connected to a network, you
can access audio files on the disc in FLAC 24-bit 96 kHz and 192 kHz formats,
320 kbps MP3, and WAV. So, you can listen to the CD in standard or SACD format;
you can listen to the Blu-Ray disc in stereo and surround sound; and you can
either rip the CD, or copy the files from the Blu-Ray disc, if you so desire,
in high-resolution FLAC files, compressed MP3 files, or standard stereo WAV
files.

Frankly, all this can get a bit confusing for most listeners who simply want
the music. I had no trouble accessing the files from my Blu-Ray player, but
there may be many people who cannot do this, and if 2L really wanted to provide
easy access to these files, they should probably have included a DVD containing
just digital files.

But on to the music. This is a brief, yet profound disc of choral music, which
combines, in counterpoint, alternating folk-songs and modern choral works.
The music is, at times, joyous, and, at others haunting. Marcus Paus’s
The Stolen Child, the only work with the string quartet, and the longest
work on the disc, is perhaps the most impressive. In just over ten minutes,
it presents a sound-world that is astounding and moving, with hints of medieval
Norwegian music. The folk-songs, some of which are different versions of the
same songs from different regions of Norway, have that timeless character
of fine, traditional folk-music. Jaakko Mäntyjärvi’s Die
Stimme des Kindes is a heartbreakingly sweet work. And the three songs
by Per Norgård are oddly interesting works.

What stands out most about this recording, however, is the recording itself.
In surround-sound, the choir envelops the listener fully in a sphere of sound.
Closing my eyes, I could feel myself to be among the choir as they sang. The
sound is especially impressive for The Stolen Child, the Paus work
for choir and string quartet.

This disc is brief; just over 44 minutes. Would that it were longer...

Kirk McElhearn

An astoundingly recorded disc of Scandinavian choral music, in CD and Blu-Ray
audio.